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A U.S. Air Force A/OA-10 Thunderbolt II from the 355th Fighter Squadron is surrounded by a cloud of gun smoke as it fires a 30mm GAU-8 Avenger Gatling gun over the Pacific Alaska Range Complex in Alaska on May 29, 2007. The seven-barrel Gatling gun can be fired at a rate of 3,900 rounds per minute. DoD photo by Airman 1st Class Jonathan Snyder, U.S. Air Force. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

* "What I've Learned" * by Kathy Hansen "I've learned that you can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you'd better know something. I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do. I've learned that it's not what happens to people that's important, it's what they do about it. I've learned that you can do something in an instant that will give you a heartache for life. I've learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides. I've learned that it's taking me a long time to become the person I ...more »

*"The Gift"* "Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one that your life conceals, the one waiting outside when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at in her crochet design, the one almost found over at the edge of the music, after the sermon. It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given. You get killed now and then, violated in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.) You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more. You have a breath without pain. It i...more »

"The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say." - J.R.R. Tolkien

[image: Legal Rights or Not, There’s Something Wrong When Satanists and Atheists Come to Pray at Governmental Meetings] Yesterday, my colleague Rachel Alexander published an article about Satanists and atheists seeking to pray at governmental meetings: It was a pick-your-poison strategy: Either accept the Satanist prayer or strip regular prayers from the meetings altogether, one of [the Satanists' spokespersons]...more »

After ruling out the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet last fall as a possible replacement for the aging CF-18s, the Liberals now appear to be leaving the door open to the controversial jet. YURI GRIPAS / REUTERS FILE PHOTO *Ottawa Citizen*: *F-35 jet back on Ottawa’s radar screen* It’s controversial, costly and, now it seems, back on Ottawa’s radar as a possible pick for Canada’s air force. OTTAWA—It’s controversial, costly and apparently back on Ottawa’s radar as a possible pick for Canada’s air force. After ruling out the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet last fall as a possible...more »

Thursday evening at the Las Vegas town hall, Nevada Democrats boo-ed Hillary Clinton when she accused Bernie Sanders of not really being a Democrat (video above). That's an interesting statement and it depends what you mean by "a Democrat." On one level she's correct. Bernie is an independent who caucuses with the Democratic Party. He founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus and was elected its first chairman. When the Democratic Party used to run candidates against him, they were also right-of-center establishment candidates who, like Hillary, were, at best, better than Repu...more »

Reuters *Wojciech Moskwa & Dorota Bartyzel, Bloomberg:* *Walesa Legend Now a Spy Story as Polish History Is Rewritten* * Government sees itself as Poland's savior from corrupt elites * Walesa denies accusations he was paid communist-era informant In the new Poland, yesterday’s heroes are being turned into today’s villains. It means that Lech Walesa, the country’s most famous politician and freedom fighter, is a traitor and the 1989 uprising that ushered in democracy and a market economy was little more than a conspiracy. At least, that’s the new Polish government’s narrative after...more »

[image: Jeb Bush Quits - 90000] COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Republican Jeb Bush ended his campaign for the presidency Saturday after a disappointing finish in South Carolina, acknowledging a failure to harness the hopes of Republican voters angry at the political establishment. The former Florida governor...more »

After ruling out the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet last fall as a possible replacement for the aging CF-18s, the Liberals now appear to be leaving the door open to the controversial jet. YURI GRIPAS / REUTERS FILE PHOTO *Ottawa Citizen*: *F-35 jet back on Ottawa’s radar screen* It’s controversial, costly and, now it seems, back on Ottawa’s radar as a possible pick for Canada’s air force. OTTAWA—It’s controversial, costly and apparently back on Ottawa’s radar as a possible pick for Canada’s air force. After ruling out the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet last fall as a possible...more »

*VOA:* *Ukraine Nationalists Attack Russian Banks on Uprising Anniversary* Ukraine nationalist protesters threw rocks and smashed windows at two Russian banks in central Kyiv on Saturday as they marked the second anniversary of a deadly uprising that toppled the country's Russian-leaning president. On a day when hundreds gathered in the city's main square to commemorate the anniversary, some demonstrators targeted a branch of Russia's Sberbank and Alfa banks, blocking traffic and throwing paint on the two facilities. Local news reports said the violence erupted despite the presen...more »

President Obama's policy in Syria is said by his critics to have been 'half-hearted' Photo: REUTERS/Mike Theiler *The Telegraph:* *US-backed militia groups now fighting each other in Syria* *President Barack Obama's confused strategy in Syria means towns are now being fought over by different US-backed groups* If anywhere can show the consequences of American foreign policy under President Barack Obama, it may be the small town of Marea, north of Aleppo. In the course of the last five years, it has seen Assad regime tanks roll through from the south, firing shells through its house...more »

*Tyler Rogoway, FoxTrot Alpha:** Here Is What All Those Colored Shirts Mean On An Aircraft Carrier's Deck* A U.S. Navy supercarrier’s 5,500-plus person crew exists to do one thing: to consistently put aircraft into the air and safely recover them after they launch. In order to make this happen, there exists a small army of flight deck facilitators, and each individual has their own role primarily designated by the color of the shirt they wear. Life on the flight deck is dangerous and taxing. Piercing sounds, walls of hot exhaust, spinning propellers and guzzling jet air intakes, g...more »

*Michael Hayden, NYT*: *To Keep America Safe, Embrace Drone Warfare* “ARE you sure they’re there?” the decision maker asks. “They” are Qaeda operatives who have been planning attacks against the United States. “Yes, sir,” the intelligence analyst replies, ticking off the human and electronic sources of information. “We’ve got good Humint. We’ve been tracking with streaming video. Sigint’s checking in now and confirming it’s them. They’re there.” The decision maker asks if there are civilians nearby. “The family is in the main building. The guys we want are in the big guesthouse he...more »

*From* *Jenna Orkin* France Declares All New Rooftops Must Be Topped With Plants Or Solar Panels 1 in 3 Oil Producers Could Go Bankrupt in 2016: Deloitte Is Oil Wastewater A Cure For California’s Drought? There's a reason it hasn't been proposed so far. Coffee Tycoon's Ashes Interred In The Iconic Pot He Made Famous Scientists Print Human Ear "It Just Occurred To Me" - Trump Proposes Boycott Of Apple, While Tweeting From An iPhone 'Ransomware': The New Cyber Threat Targeting Hospitals and Police Departments VA suicide hotline sent callers to voicemail Egypt bombs Islamic State tar...more »

The Clintons don't seem to get a simple point: Democratic primary voters hate when Democrats attack other Democrats. And now it isn't just Hillary's sleazy team of lobbyists, job-seekers and conservatives attacking Bernie, it's also Hillary herself. she uses the same basic debate tactics Cruz and Rubio use-- maybe she learned them when she was president of the Wellesley College Young Republicans. She slips in a quick attack on his character or his competence and then immediately says something like "but let's *please* talk about issues" and then throws out some policy issue that B...more »

Mike Blake / Damir Sagolj / Reuters / alessandro0770 / Shutterstock / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic *The Independent*: *The next world war will be in the South China Sea. Ask Thucydides...* *World View: Is this the dawn of the nuclear Doomsday we have lived in fear of?* Climb into my time machine and come fly with me two years into the future. Here we are, November 2018, with celebrations of the centenary of the end of the First World War in full swing. And we find ourselves part of the grand coalition that has just declared war on China. Throughout the noughties and beyond, the itch...more »

Members of a U.S. Air Force unit prepare to mount a nuclear weapon on a fighter aircraft in Kadena Air Base in Okinawa on Oct. 23, 1962. This photo was found in the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States. (Provided by the National Security Archive) *The Asahi Shimbun*: *Photos of nuclear weapons in Okinawa found in U.S. national archives* A U.S. think tank has found photos of nuclear weapons in Okinawa in the 1960s when the island was under U.S. rule. The National Security Archive (NSA) discovered three photos in the U.S. National Archives and Records Ad...more »

Military parade in Red Square. Wikipedia *Reuters*: *Russia could cut defense procurement spending: sources* The Russian government is considering a 5 percent cut in defense procurement spending this year, sources say, showing not even Vladimir Putin's plan to restore Moscow's military might is immune to the pain of a slowing economy. The president has made beefing up the military a national priority, and the fact it is up for discussion is a sign that no area is safe from budget cuts as Russia begins a second year of recession following a fall in oil prices and Western sanctions....more »

[image: Anti-fracking demonstration outside New York Governor Cuomo's office on October 9, 2012.] Progressive green groups thought they could have a nice quiet discussion about "leading the transition to clean energy" with two left-leaning state governors and a liberal billionaire -- they thought wrong. The Climate and Clean Energy: Why Young Americans Are Taking Notice...more »

*Robert Farley, National Interest*:* Why NATO Expected to Lose Most of Europe to Russia* *Cold War lessons on the promise—and nuclear peril—of escalation* A recent RAND wargame on a potential Russian offensive into the Baltics brought talk of a “new Cold War” into sharp focus. The game made clear that NATO would struggle to prevent Russian forces from occupying the Baltics if it relied on the conventional forces now available. These wargames have great value in demonstrating tactical and operational reality, which then informs broader strategic thinking. In this case, however, th...more »

*Let’s talk about the resolution proposed at the security council by Russia- The resolution, according to msm and alt media, that had everything to do with Turkey. And yet Turkey wasn’t even mentioned. Not named. Not cited. Nadda, nothing! * *Gee, I would think if this was about Turkey, Turkey would have been specifically mentioned? So, what gives? In case you didn't know, the resolution was soundly rejected. * *Read all the way through and I think you'll understand why* *The resolution was about respecting Syria's sovereignty:* *TodaysZaman * *“The Russian draft resolution didn't ...more »

*"When Your Beloved Pet Dies:* * "Until We Meet Again," "The Rainbow Bridge"* As you know it's not my habit to share details of my personal life here, but there will be a direct impact on this blog, so felt the need to explain. A few hours ago I lost the *truest* friend I ever had. Very suddenly my beloved boy Moose just toppled over and was gone. He had a heart full of pure love, and was the noblest spirit I ever knew, a far better being than me. Out of habit, or instinct I suppose, numbly doing what I do, I thought to share this material with you, maybe it'll comfort you in your ti...more »

[image: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on February 11, 2016 in Munich.] James Jeffrey, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, made a provocative assertion Tuesday when he said the burgeoning alliance between Iran, Russia and Syria is the primary problem facing the Middle East today. Speaking during a panel discussion for the launch of...more »

[image: Cameron: Britain's Referendum on EU Membership to be June 23] LONDON (AP) -- A historic referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union will be held on June 23, Prime Minister David Cameron announced Saturday, even as he declared his belief that the U.K. would be “safer and...more »

Let's see now. Pope Francis accused Donald Trump of behaving in a non-Christian fashion. Trump replied angrily that he is a devout Christian. And he proves it by pointing to his large, Christian following in those states, especially in the Deep South, where Christian evangelicals are numerous and powerful. By no coincidence, it is also the region that most hates Blacks, Latins, and anyone who is different. Similarly, he is also a man much in favour of killing masses of people in wars to make wealthy Americans wealthier. And he not only approves of torture, but would make it much mo...more »

[image: Clinton Edges Out Sanders to Narrowly Win Nevada Caucuses] LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Hillary Clinton edged out Bernie Sanders on Saturday in Nevada’s caucuses, capitalizing on a more diverse Democratic electorate to propel her to a crucial win in her presidential bid. Clinton prevailed in the third contest of...more »

[image: Protests to Rally Across US to Back Apple in Battle With FBI] SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Protesters are preparing to assemble in more than 30 cities to lash out at the FBI for obtaining a court order that requires Apple to make it easier to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by a...more »

[image: Libya Becoming New Front in Fight Against ISIS] BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) -- Libya is rapidly turning into a new front in the fight against the Islamic State group, which is heavily recruiting militants from abroad and trying to exploit years of chaos to expand its foothold in the...more »

[image: An unarmed U.S. Air Force LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Dec. 17, 2013. Col. Keith Balts, the commander of the 30th Space Wing, acted as the launch decision authority.] The Russian government is going to revamp some of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in order to blow up asteroids before they reach Earth. Sabit Saitgarayev of the Russian Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau claimed during an interview with the Russian TASS...more »

[image: Royal Dutch Shell] A California congressman and two other representatives demanded Wednesday the government investigate Royal Dutch Shell for deceiving the public about the alleged dangers associated with man-made global warming. Democratic congressmen California Rep.Ted Lieu, along side Vermont Rep. Peter Welch and...more »

A man from Indiana is suing the manufacturer of his smart TV set over claims that the television is ‘secretly spying’ on him and passing confidential information onto third parties. Tent Strader has filed a 27-page lawsuit in Indianapolis where he accuses the Vizio smart television set as monitoring his viewing habits without his permission – collecting data illegally such as websites he has visited and products he has purchased online through the web-enabled TV. Dailymail.co.uk reports: According to court documents the televisions collect personal information through their ‘Smart ...more »

Conspiracy of Silence is a powerful yet disturbing documentary that reveals the horrific U.S. child sex abuse and pedophilia rings within the highest echelons of government. The documentary was banned from being aired in May 1994 when the Discovery Channel cancelled transmission amid pressure from top politicians. Wanttoknow.info reports: Featuring intrepid investigator John DeCamp, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and 16-year Nebraska state senator,Conspiracy of Silence reveals how rogue elements at all levels of government have been involved in systematic child sex abuse and ...more »

French President Francois Hollande has warned that a war between Russia and Turkey is a very real possibility due to the escalating tensions in Syria. Hollande has urged the two countries to avoid escalation before a World War breaks out. Pravdareport.com reports: “There is a risk of war between Turkey and Russia. One must to do everything possible to avoid an escalation,” Hollande said on France Inter radio station. According to him, the Syrian authorities and the opposition should resume talks as soon as possible. One should stop the bombings of Syria and provide humanitarian ass...more »

Pink Floyd star Roger Waters has publicly stated his support for the BDS movement, saying that celebrities are “scared s***less” to speak out about the issue of Palestinian rights due to fear that their careers will be destroyed. Waters says he has been constantly labelled as a ‘Nazi’ and ‘anti-Semite’ since speaking out against Israel. Independent.co.uk reports: “The only response to BDS is that it is anti-Semitic,” Waters told The Independent, in his first major UK interview about his commitment to Israeli activism. “I know this because I have been accused of being a Nazi and an ...more »

The founding Director of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Operations Center has confirmed that Saudi Arabia have up to seven nuclear bombs ready to use. The CIA asset revealed the information during a Fox News interview last week, and suggests that they can deliver these nuclear missiles via Saudi F-15 fighter jets. Superstation95.com reports: Last week, on “The Hal Turner Show” Mr. Turner told his audience that, based on his years of experience as a National Security Intelligence Asset with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Saudi Arabia is in possession of nuclear weapons. He also m...more »

An Apple executive has issued a scathing attack on the U.S. government’s request for greater access to its software – saying that the FBI’s demands to have a virtual backdoor on its devices is worse than the Chinese government’s demands. Apple and the U.S. government have become embroiled in the latest privacy debate following a federal judge ordering Apple to assist the FBI in their access of a phone used by a San Bernardino shooter. The Guardian reports: Apple has refused, arguing that to do so would set a legal precedent that could force it to hack a suspect’s phone each time au...more »

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic unveiled a new version of its SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket on Friday. Virgin spaceship VSS Unity is designed to take tourists into space. Its the first spacecraft to be tested since the deadly 2014 crash that destroyed the original rocket and killed one of the pilots. Virgin Galactic YouTube video: eTurbo News reports: The space line founded by Sir Richard Branson unveiled the craft at California’s Mojave Air & Space Port, where it was assembled. SpaceShipTwo is designed to be flown by a crew of two and carry up to six passengers on a high-spee...more »

Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans for an in-out Europe referendum to be held on June 23, 2016. Amid an emotional plea to the British public to stay in the EU, members of the public and Cabinet Ministers alike have noted that Cameron’s argument for staying in has embarrassingly backfired – saying that upon hearing his speech they are more persuaded to leave. The Slog reports: These are the facts: We are being asked to decide on the deal before it’s been ratified Real reform of EC dictatorship is completely absent from the proposals The Government’s primary argument fo...more »

As Dave has fired the starting pistol for what is set to be a *very long* EU referendum campaign, his dear friend and alleged Tory intellectual Michael Gove has gone into print to explain why he's not backing the boss in the crucial crunch vote. And it's pretty much the usual stuff: the EU is a monster whose bureaucratic tentacles choke off innovation, research, opportunity, initiative, and sovereignty. Nevertheless, unless a politician gives a reason to think otherwise, Gove's piece should be taken at face value. His principles may be ashes in the mouths of the education workers h...more »

After Syracuse, New York congressional candidate Eric Kingson wrote a guest post last week explaining why he had endorsed Bernie, I decided to ask some of the progressive congressmen who we admire and respect to do a companion piece about why they had endorsed Hillary. I was stunned by the response. Virtually every Member I asked said something along the lines of "I'll pass; I'm sorry I endorsed her and I don't want to remind anyone." But yesterday-- right after Rep. Peter Welch announced he was endorsing Bernie and would be voting for him, as a super-delegate, at the convention, ...more »

B-1B Lancer bombers covering operations in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State/ISIS are to return to the U.S. for scheduled cockpit upgrades, according to the USAF Central Command. Russia Today reports: With the B-1 taking a back seat, the campaign may lose a “little flexibility,” but the USAF has plenty of other aircraft to compensate for the deficit, Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown, who heads the command, told journalists from his HQ in Qatar. Brown said the bombers would return to Iraq and Syria, but didn’t provide any timetable. About 80 percent of airstrikes against IS targets a...more »

Residents in Fiji have been warned to seek refuge in evacuation centers amid a state of emergency, as one of the strongest storms on record lashes the Pacific island. Cyclone Winston is a Category 5 hurricane, and deadly wind speeds of up ot 325km per hour have been reported. Aljazeera.com reports: Fights have been suspended and the prime minister has urged people to seek shelter from the storm, expected to be country’s most powerful on record. After twice drenching outlying islands in nearby Tonga last week, Cyclone Winston reintensified on Saturday and was bringing winds of 230kph...more »

This is quite a listen... It's Stephen Nolan on Radio 5 Live completely misunderstanding a caller's point and becoming quite beyond satire in the process: I think this whole debacle can be put down to that strain in BBC thinking which assumes that *anyone* who wants to control immigration *must* be a racist.

The next couple of items on today's *From Our Own Correspondent *were 'very BBC' too. First was a piece from Fergal Keane about a Bosnian town where Serbs massacred Muslims during the Balkans War. It was pure Fergal Keane - emotive, somewhat finger-wagging. I know it's cynical of me but the phrase 'award winning' and its cousin 'award-seeking' just keep coming to mind whenever I think of Fergal Keane reports like this. Then came an American journalist talking about gun control. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, what's pretty much guaranteed on *From Our Own Corresp...more »

*Warning*: *This post contains almost as few funny, clever jokes as Will Self's From Fact to Fiction tonight.* Here's a cautionary tale for anyone who fancies monitoring the BBC News Channel to see if it's providing balanced coverage of the EU referendum debate. I read a comment somewhere today saying that, having just watched the 1pm News on the BBC News Channel for 30 minutes, there hadn't been a single representative of the Leave camp asked to comment. Someone from the Remain campaign had appeared though, and there had been extracts from the PM's speech and a Jeremy Corbyn int...more »

*"Your Radiation This Week, Feb 13 to Feb 20, 2016"* By Bob Nichols "I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the truth." - Morpheus (San Francisco) February 20, 2016 – "Good Day, this is “Your Radiation This Week.” These are the recorded Radiation Highs that affected people this week around the United States and in your neighborhood. Let’s get right to it. Twenty-one [21] cities exceeded 1,000 CPM this week in Your Rad Weather. There are Thirteen (13) cities between 900 and 999 CPM. *All Radiation Counts reported are partial Counts. Uncounted types of radiation incl...more »

The man after whom the 'selfie' was named In the spirit of Will Self today... Zut alor!! Wot ze 'eck wos zis veek's *From ze Fax to ze Fixion *on abart on your BayBayCay Radeeoh Quatre? And if* you *felt any twinge of embarrassment on reading that last sentence then you'll know how *I* felt listening to Will Self's god-awful *Popping Out *this evening. My toes are still uncurling themselves. Radio 4's favourite prolix, opinionated popinjay Will Self wrote it and acted it himself. It was Self, self, self all the way. The only thing he didn't do was sing the theme tune. And as on...more »

*First, I had a bit of a relapse of having a severe cold these last few days.. That and over the last few days as well I have been suffering from a bit of insomnia.... I do believe that it is from being overworked and very run down...My better half has recommended that I take more time for rest and relaxation, and I may yet take her advise...But in the meantime, I have a few articles that I wanted to put up here at this blog to "catch up" on what has been happening around our sick world this last while.... And yes, things are definitely heating up!* Everyone knows by now about that ...more »

By Paul Homewood http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/20/the-guardians-dana-nuccitelli-uses-pseudo-science-to-libel-dr-john-christy/ You may recall that Dana Nutticcelli ran a piece in the subsidised, left wing Guardian the other day, which attempted to debunk John Christy’s testimony to Congress. The deluded drones who read the Grauniad naturally sucked it all up. I did not respond at the time because I […]

According to Saudi political analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi, Saudi Arabia has obtained a nuclear bomb. Al-‘Anzi has told RT’s Arab network that the Saudis acquired the bomb two years ago and that a nuclear test is expected soon. He also claims that ‘the superpowers know about this’ Al-‘Anzi made the claim while saying that the Kingdom is engaged in an effort to minimize the ‘Iranian threat’ in the Levant and Syria Infowars reports: Although Saudi Arabia has officially denied it has a nuclear weapons program and has publicly stated it opposes nuclear weapons in the Middle East, it has fu...more »

*Be careful the company you keep.* *An excerpt from, "Madman Erdogan Trying to Pin Ankara Massacre on YPG Kurds of Northern Syria, Despite Blatant False Flag by Turkish Intelligence" by Webster Tarpley, February 19, 2016:* To underline once again that Turkey is the main sponsor of and haven for terrorists of many stripes, a group of 500 jihadi killers was reportedly on its way from the Turkish border towards Azaz, the key to the road from Aleppo back into Turkey. If Azaz is taken by the Kurds, many terrorists will be cut off and eliminated before they can return to their privileged...more »

[image: immigration3 - 900] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are soon going to have to level with Congress about a federal contractor handing free smartphones to illegal aliens released from detention centers. Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and...more »

In keeping with my series on Chasing Footnotes, I have found a subtopic that is almost as interesting (well, it is to me) which is finding original sources (which, of course, is sort of the same thing). Not all that long ago I ran across an analysis of the Roswell case in which it was claimed that Captain Darwin Rasmussen (later Colonel) had assisted Major Jesse Marcel in recovering the alien bodies. I have never heard anything like that and it puzzled me because, as far as I knew, only Stan Friedman and I had interviewed Rasmussen’s cousin, Elaine Vegh. Now that you all are thoroug...more »

The beating of a woman has led to an insurrection by Sunni tribesmen in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Anti-ISIS fighters fought with militants after a local woman was targeted by the extremists for not wearing the right garb and showing some skin on her hands. NBC reports: “The clashes started when tens of Fallujah men stood against ISIS militants who started to beat a woman in a Fallujah market because she was not wearing gloves,” said Sabah Karhoot, the chairman of the governing council of Anbar province where the city is located. “Therefore, the men could not stand and do nothing.” ...more »

Democratic presidential nominee Bernie Sanders has been fighting for justice for over half a century, standing up to the establishment and fighting against segregation – he even got arrested for standing up for what he believes. Bernie was once nabbed by the police while protesting the treatment of his fellow human beings over 50-years-ago when he was barely old enough to legally have an alcoholic drink. The Week reports: This striking photo shows Bernie Sanders getting arrested at a 1963 civil rights protest The Chicago Tribune whipped out an archival photo of Bernie Sanders at a...more »

In order to avoid an accidental conflict The Pentagon has revealed the location of its Special Forces in Syria to the Russian military. Sputnik reports: The disclosure was made beyond the scope of the existing memorandum of understanding (MOU) which was signed between the US and Russia in October 2015 in order to regulate safety protocols for their respective warplanes in the region. “We provided a geographical area that we asked them to stay out of it because of the risk to US forces,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told journalists, according to Military Times. “This was a step we ...more »

*RELATED:* *NY Times interviews Albert: For 45 Years in Prison, Louisiana Man Kept Calm and Held Fast to Hope* The UK Guardian has just released the first in-depth interview with Albert Woodfox since his release yesterday afternoon: In his first interview since being released from West Feliciana parish detention center in Louisiana, Woodfox told the Guardian that in 1972, when he was put into “closed cell restriction”, or CCR, he made a conscious decision that he would survive. He and his comrades from the so-called Angola 3, Herman Wallace and Robert King, made a vow to be str...more »

One of the original members of The Jackson 5 and the brother of the late music legend Michael Jackson, has come out and criticized the U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump for mentioning his brother during his campaign. The Donald who is currently leading the polls for the Republicans was interviewed in a CNN town-hall and discussed his relationship with Michael Jackson, saying that the superstar had lost all his confidence prior to his death due to botch surgery jobs. Michael’s brother Jermaine Jackson, a superstar in his own right for his music and personality, told the billio...more »

*New York Times:** U.S. Bombing in Libya Reveals Limits of Strategy Against ISIS* CAIRO — American warplanes bombed a seaside town in Libya early Friday aiming to kill a militant commander linked to attacks on Western tourists. But the mission also highlighted the widening gap between American military operations and diplomatic efforts to bring peace and stability to a tumultuous region. The airstrikes on a training camp in Sabratha, targeting a Tunisian militant associated with planning two major attacks on Western tourists in Tunisia last year, did demonstrate the United States...more »

*SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2016Cable's top clown doesn't care:* When last we looked in on the children of Flint, we had at least two basic questions: First question: What kinds of health effects are the children of Flint likely to experience because of their exposure to lead in Flint's drinking water? Second question: If Flint is AN AMERICAN DISASTER (as advertised on the Maddow Show), what are we supposed to say about Allentown, Pa., where children's exposure to lead seems to be many times worse? Several weeks later, those questions remain, even after the "TRMS Special Report" whic...more »

By Paul Homewood http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000554 I was tipped off about this paper (sorry, forgot who!), which casts an interesting light on climate changes around the Ross Sea, in the Antarctic. Abstract Environmental change drives demographic and evolutionary processes that determine diversity within and among species. Tracking these processes during periods of change reveals […]

Air Force photos *David Axe, War Is Boring*: *The U.S. Air Force Still Plans to Prematurely Retire the A-10* So much for the Warthog's alleged reprieve. Supporters of the U.S. Air Force’s A-10 Warthog attack jet celebrated in February when the Pentagon announced that the flying branch would delay retiring the heavily-armored, gun-armed planes until 2022, eventually replacing the A-10 squadrons one at a time with units flying the new F-35 stealth fighter. Previously, the Air Force planned to fully retire all 300 A-10s by 2018. Congressional and public opposition — and the fact tha...more »

*-by Daureen Mowd* What is Bill Clinton so angry about? Let’s take stock: *•* rising from humble origins to the world’s most-powerful position, *•* continuing to have global prestige and influence, *•* penetrating deeply into high income and wealth, and *•* being married to an extremely smart, accomplished and widely admired woman-- Aha! Bill is angry about the speed bumps hit by Hillary’s Presidential campaign. But Bill knows that: *•* Presidential campaigns have their ups and downs-- and are often lost, *•* coolness is more effective than anger in reacting to the downs, *•* bec...more »

[image: Scalia Funeral Exit] WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was remembered Saturday as a man who loved God, country and family at a funeral Mass capping two days of mourning for a jurist who left a long and sometimes provocative legacy...more »

REUTERS/Host Photo Agency/RIA Novosti *Martin Matishak, Business Insider/The Fiscal Times*:* Everyone's trying to score one of Russia's new warplanes* The jet fighter war between the United States, China and Russia expanded this week when Moscow unveiled a new, export version of its Sukhoi-30 warplane. "The Su-30SME aircraft (the export version of the Su-30SM fighter jet) has been shown on the international market for the first time," a source in the defense and industrial sector told TASS, Russia’s state-owned news agency. The new aircraft will be equipped with Russian-made avion...more »

[image: Oconee Nuclear Station began commercial operation in 1973 and was the first of three nuclear stations designed, built and operated by Duke Energy. Located on Lake Keowee in Oconee County, South Carolina, the facility is eight miles north of Clemson.] South Carolinians head to the polls Saturday to vote on who they think should be president, and each candidates' views on nuclear power could be a factor for voters. The South Carolina state government is currently preparing to sue the Department of...more »

[image: LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 1: Marchers pass over the 101 freeway, on their way to the Metropolitan Detention Center during one a several May Day immigration-themed events on May 1, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. Demonstrators are calling for immigration reform and an end to deportations of undocumented residents.] In 2009, President Obama assured Congress that illegal immigrants would not be eligible for Obamacare subsidies. Administration officials repeated it again in 2014 when his executive orders expanded amnesty for younger illegal immigrants. Many Americans didn’t believe ...more »

[image: Union members held a sit-in in the rotunda of the Michigan State Capitol to protest a vote on Right-to-Work legislation on December 11, 2012 in Lansing, Michigan.] An Oregon home health care provider filed a federal lawsuit against a union she claims is illegally collecting dues from employees in her field. Maryann Rose has been forced to continue paying dues to Service Employees International Union Local 503...more »

U.N. chemical weapons experts wearing gas masks carry samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Ain Tarma neighbourhood of Damascus August 28, 2013. *Kimberly Dozier, Daily Beast*: *How Pentagon Geeks & Russian Generals Plotted in Secret to Take Away Assad’s WMD* *A secret plan involving Pentagon scientists and Russian national security officials managed to take out the weapons of mass destruction belonging to a brutal dictator.* Every once in a rare while, a cunning plan to stop an evil dictator works. At least for a time. Such is the story of a ...more »

Russia Insider says: The venerable Stephen Cohen lays into Hillary, Obama and the NATO military build-up against Russia with RT's Ed Schultz (formerly of MSNBC). The US and its NATO vassals continue to live in a fantasy land of Russian threats. But Barack Obama apparently can't decide if Russia is a threat or not. In March 2014 Obama declared Russia a "regional power" which was threatening neighboring countries "out of weakness." Yet now he says Russia has the "second most powerful military in the world." Wow, Vladimir Putin has engineered a remarkable climb in Russia's strength ...more »

If you were wondering what's happened to Nick Thorpe - the BBC Central Europe correspondent whose barely concealed disdain for the Hungarian government's attempts to keep out migrants last year left him open to repeated charges of bias - well, he's still there, doing his thing. Here's a reminder of just some of his greatest hits (sources here): This whole refugee crisis sometimes seems to me like a football match. Rich Nations of Europe 2: Wretched of the Earth 3. At first light, a Syrian man in a suit stained dark with sweat, still wearing his tie, swung down the railway track t...more »

[image: A handful of demonstrators gathered in the sub-freezing temperatures to protest for Freddie Gray outside Mitchell Courthouse-West for jury selection in his trial on January 11, 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland.] An unusual legal battle in the trials of the officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray could propel the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams ruled that Baltimore Officer William G. Porter could...more »

[image: In this Feb. 10, 2016, photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. Grassley has a major say on whether President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court even gets a hearing. In the past week, Grassley, who is seeking a seventh term, has delivered a muddled message about the fate of any pick. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)] WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Chuck Grassley -- farmer, onetime sheet metal shearer, six-term senator and Judiciary Committee chairman -- has a major say in whether President Barack O...more »

Enenews linked a very interesting interview between Maggie and Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds regarding findings of radioactive dust and soil samples on their recent trip to Japan. Here are the links for the story and the interview: http://enenews.com/nuclear-expert-plutonium-everywhere-everywhere-after-fukushima-reactors-exploded-being-redeposited-unanticipated-locations-black-radioactive-dust-running-pacific-ocean-video https://soundcloud.com/fairewinds-energy/ground-zero-japan-speaking-tour-no-2-021716 Enenews' account of the interview emphasized findings of significant levels in...more »

aa.com *Owen Matthews, Spectator:* *Putin’s winning in Syria – but making a powerful new enemy* This time he’s taking on Turkey’s President Erdogan, a ruler as ruthless as he is Russia’s bombing of the city of Aleppo this week sent a clear message: Vladimir Putin is now in charge of the endgame in Syria. Moscow’s plan — essentially, to restore its ally Bashar al-Assad to power — is quickly becoming a reality that the rest of the world will have to accept. America, Britain and the rest may not be comfortable with Putin’s ambitions in the Middle East, or his methods of achieving th...more »

The week at Retraction Watch featured a peer review nightmare come true, and a look at why publishing negative findings is hard. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: In Texas, publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine could lose you a state job. (AP, via The Austin Statesman) And In Toronto, a show trial can, if you study transgender […] The post Weekend reads: Publish and perish in Texas; clinical trial reporting poor but improving; forget peer review appeared first on Retraction Watch.

[image: Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic speaks during a news conference in Belgrade, Serbia, Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016. Dacic says two Serbian embassy staffers who had been held hostage since November are believed to have been killed in Friday's U.S. airstrikes on an Islamic State camp in western Libya. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)] BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- Two Serbian embassy staffers held hostage since November died in Friday’s U.S. airstrikes on an Islamic State camp in western Libya that killed dozens, Serbian officials said Saturday, questioning why the Americans did not appear...more »

[image: Donald Trump5 - 900] Donald Trump has challenged the Christianity of Ted Cruz while also raising questions about the nature of Ben Carson's faith. In the past, he also suggested that President Obama might be a Muslim rather than a Christian. Now, the Pope...more »

[image: Ben Carson and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz speaking at the final Republican Party debate, hosted by Fox News, on January 28, 2016 before the 2016 Iowa caucuses at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa.] Two GOP candidates in the race for the White House, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, held a secret meeting Thursday night. The meeting reportedly was to smooth over hard feelings caused by the Cruz campaign spreading false...more »

[image: Policemen look on as refugees from Syria demonstrate against violence near the Cologne main train station in Cologne, western Germany on January 16, 2016, where hundreds of women were groped and robbed in a throng of mostly Arab and North African men during New Year's festivities.] The German state of North Rhine Westphalia, where Cologne is located, has struck a deal with the federal government to not accept any refugees from Morocco. Thirty out of 73 people arrested from the attacks in Cologne on New Year's...more »

[image: British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks during a final press conference at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron pushed a summit into overtime Friday after a second day of tense talks with weary European Union leaders unwilling to fully meet his demands for a less intrusive EU. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)] LONDON (AP) -- A historic referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union will be held on June 23, Prime Minister David Cameron announced Saturday, even as he declared his belief that the U.K. would...more »

[image: In a Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011 file photo, Italian writer Umberto Eco gestures as he speaks during a press conference at the 25th Annual Book Fair in Jerusalem. Eco, best known for the international best-seller The Name of the Rose, died Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, according to spokeswoman Lori Glazer of Eco’s American publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He was 84. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)] MILAN (AP) -- Umberto Eco started working a novel that set the world’s imagination on fire “prodded by a seminal idea: I felt like poisoning a monk.” The Italian author/academic who...more »

http://ottawacitizen.com/ Chantal Hebert writes this morning that the Trudeau government is showing signs of being all hat and no cattle. She offers four examples: - Second only to that of the prime minister, the credibility of the finance minister is an asset that must be preserved at all costs. That is even truer in the case of a government led by a prime minister with limited economic credentials. This week in the House of Commons, the Bill Morneau-Trudeau tandem came across as less than the sum of its parts. With the date o...more »

*Reuters*: *Afghan troops pull out of strategic Helmand district* Afghan forces have pulled out of bases in Musa Qala, a strategic district of the southern province of Helmand, after months of heavy fighting with Taliban insurgents, officials said on Saturday. Helmand, a traditional heartland of the Taliban and one of the world's biggest centers of opium production, has been threatened for months and the United States recently sent hundreds of soldiers to the province to bolster its defense. The commander of the Afghan army's 215th corps, Mohammad Moeen Faqir, said troops had been...more »

This Thursday's *The World Tonight *on Radio 4 discussed the EU and the migrant crisis. Its starting point was a "withering assessment" of the debate in Europe about migration from François Crépeau, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. Razia Iqbal duly interviewed him, and he made the kind of points you would expect a left-liberal Canadian human rights lawyer to make. For example, he both denounced voters "who have no idea what it's like to be migrants" and the politicians who pander to them, and he thinks we can cope with the migrants because Euro...more »

In this tweet yesterday, *Washington Post* columnist and notorious villager Aaron Blake was trying to drive traffic to an article by a colleague, Amber Phillips, about Orlando congressman Alan Grayson, who both referred to as "Congress' most bizarre member," presumably, at least in Amber's and Aaron's world, more bizarre than, for example, Louie Gohmert, or the guy equating Apple with terrorist supporters, Arkansas closet case Tom Cotton (R-AR), the guy who wants to end weekends, Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Jody Hice (R-GA), or the doctor-- now a GOP congressman-in-good-standing-- who w...more »

By Paul Homewood h/t Pethefin Map showing maximum (April) sea ice extension in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic (Norwegian Polar Institute 2000). The map is based on a database on sea ice extension in the area shown during the past 400 years, to a high degree based on written records found […]

*FOX News:* *North Korea conducts artillery drill near sea border, South officials say* North Korea conducted an artillery drill near the sea border with South Korea, startling South Koreans and making them prepare for a possible evacuation, officials said Saturday. Later, North Korean’s official Korean Central News Agency hurled insults at South Korean President Park Geun-hye, calling her a “tailless, old, insane bitch” as it denounced her hardline response to the North’s recent long-range rocket launch and nuclear test. South Korea shut down a factory park in North Korea that h...more »

[image: ISIS terrorist] The apocalyptic ideology that propels the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) is by now well-known. Much less widely known are the use of chemical weapons by ISIS in Iraq and Syria or the disappearance of radioactive materials in Iraq...more »

[image: Honor guards salute the flag-draped casket containing the body of the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, where Scalia's body lies in repose. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)] WASHINGTON (AP) -- A funeral Mass for Justice Antonin Scalia is scheduled to be celebrated at the nation’s largest Roman Catholic church, a place where popes have prayed and millions of pilgrims and tourists have visited. The Mass on Saturday...more »

[image: Sheila_Walsh_2015 900] Author, teacher, inspirational speaker and singer Sheila Walsh has officially joined The Stream. The Scottish-born Walsh has sold over 5 million books, and her international ministry has reached many millions with the message of Christianity. She’s the former co-host of The 700 Club, and is one...more »

[image: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to students at Del Sol High School, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)] COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- After a week of bitter attacks, Republicans face off Saturday in South Carolina’s presidential primary, a contest that could determine Donald Trump’s strength as a front-runner and help clarify whether a more mainstream politician will ever...more »

*UK: Left-wing protesters force an academic to cancel his lecture on welfare reforms after launching a social media campaign to 'shut it down'* Left-wing activists have succeeded in stopping a university lecture in which a respected academic was due to present his research on welfare. The talk at the London School of Economics has been temporarily postponed over concerns that campaigners were threatening to disrupt it. Dr Adam Perkins had been due to speak about his book, which examined the relationship between personality and the welfare state. However, organisers suspended the e...more »

A Home Office decision to deport 92 year old widow has sparked public outcry. Myrtle Cothill is unable to care for herself and was hoping to stay in the UK with her daughter, but instead has been ordered to return to her native South Africa. Update: Following the massive public outcry Myrtle has won a “stay of execution” after the Home Office cancelled a planned deportation According to the Guardian, immigration enforcement officials had booked Cothill on a Virgin flight to Johannesburg on Tuesday night but rang her lawyers late on Friday to say her booking had been cancelled. It is...more »

[image: Democratic presidential candidat Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) acknowledges the crowd at the MSNBC Democratic Presidential Forum at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health on February 18, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Nevada Democratic caucus is February 20. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)] CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) -- Small Nevada -- population 3 million -- became one of the first four states in the presidential nominating process thanks to an effort a decade ago to add more diversity to the early voting calendar....more »

[image: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump poses with a ring given to him by a group of veterans during a campaign event on the campus of Drake University Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)] Donald Trump is calling for a boycott of Apple products until the tech giant relents and helps the FBI break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists. “Boycott Apple until such time as they give that information,”...more »

*Disruptive Green/Left "protests" to be legally curbed in Western Australia* *That's long overdue but far-Left "New Matilda" (below) is on its high horse condemning it. They say the word "thing" is too vague but it is not. It is the use to which the thing is put that defines it. If it is used to disrupt other people's lives and activities it's use becomes illegal. It's sheer Fascist arrogance that the Green/Left think they have a right to disrupt other people's lives in pursuit of their personal demonsThe mention of U.N. "rapporteurs" is amusing. They must be the most unjudic...more »

This post might have but a tenuous link to the core purpose of this blog, but we reserve the right to go off-piste if we’re sufficiently piste off. "Bringing in the RESPECT Party helps Grassroots Out’s chance of getting the official designation for the referendum. Because those who check with the Electoral Commission would know that you could have every Cabinet Minister under the sun backing you, but it wouldn’t help with the “cross party” requirement. This is where the establishment Vote Leave are failing. And indeed it is a problem of their making." That is Raheem Kassam’s argu...more »

A huge target. (Reuters/Tim Chong) Cassie Werber, Quartz: Oil is now so cheap even pirates aren’t stealing it any more Stealing the oil from a ship is no mean feat. Oil tankers are enormous, and ships that carry expensive cargo are designed to be difficult to board. Stealing can mean hijacking the original tanker, disabling its tracking devices, taking it to a location where it can’t be spotted, and transferring thousands of heavy barrels to a different vessel that can then be sailed away. Stealing crude also means finding a buyer for it, or else getting involved in the messy and ...more »

As that last post shows, the BBC isn't always a monolith, Indeed, *Newsnight *and *The World Tonight *also differed in the general tone of their reporting of David Cameron's deal with the EU: *Newsnight *added a little cynicism to the mix while *The World Tonight *eschewed cynicism entirely. In fact, if I were given to hyperbole, I'd say that last night's *The World Tonight *sounded for all the world as if it had been written by the Number Ten press office (please listen from 8.01 onwards). Reporter Gavin Lee described "the tussle in Brussels" in terms that made it sound as if D...more »

A recent poll indicates that Bernie Sanders is gaining support among Democrats, with 72% of registered voters believing he could win the U.S. presidential race against any Republican candidate. In a previous poll conducted in Dec. 2015 only 21% of those surveyed had any faith in the junior United States Senator from Vermont. The public are now ‘feeling the Bern’ and liking it. Sputnik reports: In the poll, Hillary Clinton is believed to be more electable than Sanders, with nine out of 10 voters believing in her, but other polls have been telling a different story. A new Quinnipiac U...more »

GGN *Stephen Kinzer, Boston Globe:* *The media are misleading the public on Syria* COVERAGE OF the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why. For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers wo...more »

I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was nine, and thought then and now that it was a work of true art by some very interesting person whom I'd like to know. (I thought Atticus was modeled on my Father, and was pleased that he laughed when I told him so.) When I read Go Set a Watchman, I thought, ah, this is the real story that was totted up by her after her publishers told her that her first

[image: Ash Wednesday Lent - 900] DEACON KEITH FOURNIER -- Christians are currently in the annual 40-day period of prayer, penance, reflection and fasting called Lent. It begins on Ash Wednesday every year (February 10th, this year) and ends with the Easter celebration. Every Ash Wednesday, I...more »

in this amazingly professional and honourable interview by Michael Parker of ANTIDOTE, *Magicians of the Gods* author Graham Hancock blatantly and shamelessly and super-respectfully channels the late, great, Bill Hicks with his 'and we can explore space together, both inner and outer' if we learn from the lessons of Atlantis. Thankyou.

Grassroots Out (GO!) received coverage from both of the BBC's nightly current affairs staples - *The World Tonight *on Radio 4 and *Newsnight *on BBC Two. Intriguingly Paul Moss for Radio 4 *didn't *even mention George Galloway, whereas *Newsnight*'s very own GG, Gabriel Gatehouse, not only began his report with the row over the Gorgeous One but also went back to it later on. (In other words, one reporter made it the main pivot of his report while the other reporter ignored it completely.) That's not the only difference. Here's *The World Tonight*'s Paul Moss, pointing out the ...more »

The island of Fiji is facing the worst tropical cyclone in its history – with a category-five cyclone set to sweep across the island on Saturday night. Tropical Cyclone Winston will bring winds of 300km per hour and gusts of up to 360km per hour – with experts warning that the storm could completely devastate Fiji due to its unprecedented power. Thousands of residents have already left their homes and relocated to evacuation centers, with winds continuing to intensify as the storm inches closer to the island. All flights in and out of the country have been cancelled until further n...more »

*A friend near Baling. * So much to catch up on! The KMT Chairmanship struggle is still a two woman race between Hung Hsiu-chu, the reactionary mainlander former presidential candidate, and Huang Min-hui, a Taiwanese faction politician from a family with long service to the KMT. Remarkable to think that if Chen Chu succeeds Tsai Ing-wen to the Chairmanship of the DPP, the president and heads of both major political parties will be female come May. This demonstrates not merely female power but continuity of female power, since the previous party heads will have both been female. In...more »

So, the BBC Natural History Unit - possibly the BBC's most trusted brand - has been found guilty of serious editorial breaches by the BBC Trust for faking some of the footage in two landmark documentaries. As others have said, the really astonishing thing about this is that the BBC is now forcing *all* its natural history programme makers to go on a 'fakery prevention course' - as if it should actually *need *drilling into their heads that such fakery is wrong. It's a funny old organisation, the BBC, at times.

Russian pilots ready a Su-30 fighter for a raid at Hmeimim aerodrome in Syria. Reuters File Matthew Gault, Reuters: *Podcast: Is the Syrian war partly an ad for Russia’s arms industry?* Russia has gone to great pains to display its refurbished and modern weaponry the last few years. First in Georgia, then in Ukraine and now in Syria. Pundits, journalists and bloggers have marveled at how far Moscow’s military has come after the decade of decay following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But just how strong is Russia’s military? Are the new tanks, land-based drones, stealth fighte...more »

*no, I'd never seen this either...* apparently, Testor's scale 1:48 *Roswell Craft* debut'd in 1997 (original artwork above) and was reissued in 2005 in this form with plastic sunroof and chill'ing alien cohorts. *manta ray?*

There’s quite a storm brewing. Did Raheem Kassam and about 100 other people walk out of the grassroots meeting because of George Galloway, or because they were afraid they’d miss the last bus home? What do you think? Has Farage scored a massive own goal by allowing George Galloway to spook a considerable number of potential “out’ campaign voters, or will the “Go” movement swallow their differences in the name of unity? I did notice that many of the speakers seemed to be preparing the audience to accept that they’d have to work alongside people they disagreed with - and -yes, even...more »

Just watching *BBC Breakfast *between 8 and 9 o'clock this morning. Here's a snapshot of what I saw. Naga Munchetty was talking to two Labour MPs on opposite sides of the EU debate - Ben Bradshaw and Kate Hoey. Her questions focused overwhelmingly on splits in the Labour Party and splits within the pro-Leave camp. Then came an interview about the death of Harper Lee. Guess who was invited for interview? Shami Chakrabarti of course. It was *To Kill a Mockingbird *that inspired our Shami to become a lawyer, naturally. Then came the paper review with politics lecturer, Dr Victoria Ho...more »

NATO has warned Turkey that it will not support the country if they choose to go to war with Russia. As tensions between the two countries continues to escalate, Turkey has begun deploying ground forces across its border with Syria in order to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – a move which threatens a world war with Russia. Sputniknews.com reports: “The armed forces of the two states are both active in fierce fighting on the Turkish-Syrian border, in some cases just a few kilometers from each other,” one NATO official told Der Spiegel. Ankara’s aggression seems partially base...more »

* This is my article in BusinessWorld yesterday. The classical liberal philosophy of more individual freedom and more personal/parental responsibility, free market and less government intervention and taxation is not a popular personal and political philosophy in Asia yet, at least compared to similar movements in the US and Europe. So annual events like the Economic Freedom Network (EFN) Asia conference, and now the Asia Liberty Forum (ALF), are very helpful in asserting the virtues of classical liberal, aka “libertarian” or “free market” philosophy. This concept is vastly diffe...more »

Image: Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Air Force. *Dave Majumdar, National Interest*: *Revealed: China's Radars Can Track America's Stealth F-22 Raptor* State-run Chinese media is claiming that the People’s Liberation Army has been able to track the U.S. Air Force’s Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighters over the East China Sea. While the Chinese report might be easily dismissed as propaganda—it is not beyond the realm of possibility. In fact—it’s very possible that China can track the Raptor. Stealth is not a cloak of invisibility, after all. Stealth technology simply delays detecti...more »

Jonathan Drake/Reuters *Dan Lamonthe, Washington Post*: *Bowe Bergdahl’s mental disorder identified in new ‘Serial’ podcast episode* Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl exhibited symptoms of a mental condition known as schizotypal personality disorder at the time that he chose to walk away from his platoon’s base in Afghanistan in 2009 and was subsequently captured, according to a new episode of the podcast “Serial” released Friday. It marks the first time that a specific diagnosis for Bergdahl has been reported for the period in which he left his platoon’s base alone and without a gun just ...more »

Encyclopaedia Britannica *John Coumarianos, Marketwatch*:* Chilling ways the global economy echoes 1930s Great Depression era* *Protectionism, shaky debt, and weak banking systems have consequences* One view of what caused the Great Depression in the 1930s is that the Federal Reserve failed to prevent a collapse in the money supply. This is the famous thesis of Milton Friedman’s and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, and it was, more or less, the view of Ben Bernanke when he was chairman of the Federal Reserve. The global economy today resembles th...more »

When Evan Davis went to Paris and hosted a non-BBC version of *Question Time *for UK sixth-formers concerning the UK's membership of the EU, the panel famously consisted of* 5* pro-Remain guests and *0* pro-Leave guests. I ended that post by writing: Returning to official BBC matters in the light of all this: How many episodes of the BBC's own* Question Time* will have an overwhelmingly (or entirely) pro-EU panel over the next few months? I bet someone will be counting. People already are, suggesting a marked pro-EU bias across most *Question Time *panels in recent weeks. Th...more »

Lots of people will be systematically monitoring the BBC's coverage of the EU referendum. I bit off rather more that I could chew on Wednesday when I thought it might be a good idea to monitor the BBC News Channel for a few hours each night (between certain set times) for a week, but the process proved far too time-consuming. So I abandoned ship. Still, I thought I'd share with you my notes on all the interviews on the subject between 4 and 8 pm on Wednesday evening, as they strike me as being quite revealing. You'll find transcriptions of all the questions put by the BBC and sum...more »

*The wires vibrated, the tumblers turned, and out dropped this irregular despatch from our regular correspondent Suzuki Samurai* ------------------------------ Has there ever been a more ghastly bunch of presidential candidates for Americans to choose from? Ever? Ever at any time at all?! I thought that Mitt the Git Romney or Obamamessiah was a bad enough choice. But Trump? *Seriously?* Cruz? *What?!?* Hairy Clit-on? *Yuk!* Where’s the choice? Where’s there something to choose *from*? The death-by-a-thousand-cuts course that the US has been on for years is painful to ...more »

It's scarcely over a week since the BBC was heavily reporting the pro-EU views of Rob Wainwright, the British head of Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency. He was on *Newsnight *less than two weeks ago saying that a Brexit would put Britain's security at risk and he was on *Hardtalk *the following day saying that a Brexit would make it harder for Britain to fight terrorism. His latest statements, on a related matter, *haven't *caught the BBC's eye yet - even though Sky News has it as one of its top four stories: The story has also been reported by the *Daily Telegraph*, the *D...more »

*You may recall this post from a week and a half ago:* Opinions R Us I was just reading *Biased BBC *and saw a comment there saying that BBC News Channel presenter Martine Croxall had made an extraordinary biased statement during one of Friday night;s paper reviews: BBC News 24 couple of nights ago: Vacant-looking Martine Croxall reviewing the papers with 2 achingly left-wing commentators. Comes to the story about the ECJ forbidding the UK from deporting Abu Hamza’s daughter-in-law for terrorist activities due to her ‘right to a family life’. Martine opines: “That’s why we need...more »

*Written by Grant G * I must admit my surprise when The National Post...Globe and Mail..Calgary Herald and even more newspapers ran to the defense of Ezra Levant....Front page stories to boot.. Rachel Notley made a mistake in banning the Rebel from Government pressers...I understand Rachel Notley's frustration, Ezra Levant lies, distorts and spews bile hatred every time he opens his mouth or keyboard.. Alberta's woes aren't the fault of NDP government, it's the price of oil yet somehow the racist hatemongers believe the NDP government caused oil to crash in value... Oh indeed,...more »

*Time:* *Watch U.S. Marines Drift Tanks in the Snow* A group of Marines got fast and furious with some help from their Norwegian friends, drifting tanks through the snow. The U.S. Marine Forces of Europe and Africa posted a video to Facebook showing soldiers performing the famous auto stunt in an M1A1 Abrams and an Amphibious Assault Vehicles on in ice in Rena, Norway. Drifting, made especially famous by the Fast and Furious film franchise, is a driving technique where a driver intentionally oversteers the vehicle when approaching a corner, causing the car to slide while still mai...more »

An Air Force Security Forces member stands guard next to an F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft following a flyover by four Raptors, four South Korean F-15 Slam Eagles and four U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons near Osan Air Base, South Korea, Feb. 17, 2016. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Travis Edward

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I've been 'around' for a few years now, pursuing the shifting goal of a sharable home-made surfers resource site focused on ease of use and variety of mostly adult ( whoa : I didn't say prurient ) content.